BEIJING — Scientists have created the world’s first human-sheep chimera — which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs, according to news report Monday. The sheep have 15 percent human cells and 85 percent animal cells and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer. Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and about 9.8 million dollars perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep’s foetus. He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep. The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep’s foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant. At present 7,168 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Britain alone, and two thirds of them are expected to die before an […]
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I’m Melissa Block. Today at the Arab Summit in Riyadh, Saudi King Abdullah said lack of Arab unity is responsible for much of the trouble in the region. He also pointed to Western countries as culprits. He called for an immediate end to the economic blockade of the Palestinian territories and as NPR’s Peter Kenyon reports, King Abdullah criticized what he called the illegal foreign occupation of Iraq. PETER KENYON: Ever since he formally succeeded King Fahd in the summer of 2005, King Abdullah has quietly and cautiously promoted reform in the kingdom and a greater Saudi role in regional affairs. In hosting the first Arab summit to be held here in more than three decades, Abdullah helped arrange a number of top-level side meetings and reached out to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who’s been largely isolated by key Arab leaders recently. When it came time to address his colleagues in public today, Abdullah didn’t miss the opportunity to deliver a clear call for Arab states to put aside internal disputes and focus on creating Arab solutions to the problems plaguing the region. Some delegates were pleased to […]
BERLIN — Some three million teenage girls in Germany are to be urged to take part in a mass vaccination campaign to help to stamp out cervical cancer. The go-ahead for the jabs - in effect Germany’s first nationwide anticancer immunisation - is likely to nudge other EU countries, including Britain, to consider similar steps. Germany is Europe’s largest market for medicines and pharmaceuticals. The course of three injections, costing €150 (about £100) each could mark the beginning of the end of the smear test. In Germany, the Standing Commission for Vaccination is recommending that all girls between the ages of 12 and 17 be vaccinated against the Human papilloma virus which causes precancerous and cancerous lesions. About 70 per cent of cervical tumours are caused by the papilloma 16 and papilloma 17 viruses. Related Links * Should Britain follow suit? The vaccines, marketed under the names Gardasil and Silgard, have been available in German pharmacies since last year. But the green-light from the Commission, made up of experts from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, has transformed the economics of mass vaccination: state insurance companies will, from next week,, […]
CALVERT, Md. — Toby, a 2-year-old golden retriever, saw his owner choking on a piece of fruit and began jumping up and down on the woman’s chest. The dog’s owner believes the dog was trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver and saved her life. Debbie Parkhurst, 45, of Calvert told the Cecil Whig she was eating an apple at her home Friday when a piece lodged in her throat. She attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself but it didn’t work. After she began beating on her chest, she said Toby noticed and got involved. ‘The next think I know, Toby’s up on his hind feet and he’s got his front paws on my shoulders,’ she recalled. ‘He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest.’ That’s when the apple dislodged and Toby started licking her face to keep her from passing out, she said. ‘I literally have pawprint-shaped bruises on my chest. I’m still a little hoarse, but otherwise, I’m OK,’ Parkhurst said. ‘The doctor said I probably wouldnt be here without Toby,’ said Parkhurst, a jewelry artist. ‘I keep […]
Scientists have identified a new type of twins that sits somewhere between fraternal twins and identical ones on the scale of similarity. The discovery of the so-called ‘semi-identical twins’ came during an investigation into the genetic make-up of a pair of young twins in the US. The twins are thought to have formed as a result of a previously unknown method, where two sperm cells fuse with a single egg, before becoming two embryos. Each sperm has contributed genes to each child, so while the twins are identical on their mother’s side, they share only half their genes on their father’s side. ‘This probably represents a rare event, but it demonstrates that not all twins conform to the traditionally accepted classifications,’ the researchers said. Study co-author Dr Grant Montgomery, from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, described it as ‘a rare but interesting finding’. ‘It appears to be an unusual case of twins, and it’s the first to our knowledge,’ he said. ‘It does alert us to the fact that sometimes these rare events occur.’
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
